As the 21st Session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF21) convenes, global attention turns to the critical role forests play in delivering on interconnected goals for climate, biodiversity and sustainable development. Forests cover more than 30% of the Earth’s land surface, support the livelihoods of over a billion people, and are home to around 80% of terrestrial biodiversity, yet they continue to face significant and ongoing degradation.

UNFF21 provides an important moment to take stock of progress towards global commitments – including the Paris agreement-linked goal of halting and reversing deforestation by 2030– while strengthening coordination between international policy ambitions and locally grounded action. Insights emerging from CDKN and its partners highlight that while awareness and commitments are growing, progress remains uneven, with persistent gaps between global ambition and implementation on the ground.

In response to a call from the COP30 Presidency, CDKN and alliance partner Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (FFLA) recently submitted its contribution to the COP 30 Presidency Roadmap on Halting and Reversing Deforestation and Forest Degradation by 2030, highlighting the progress and persistent gaps. A key message emerging from this work – which is highly relevant to the discussions at UNFF21 – is the need to better connect global policy frameworks with locally led approaches that are already demonstrating impact.

As UNFF21 brings together governments, practitioners and partners to advance sustainable forest management, it provides a timely opportunity to reflect on lessons from across CDKN’s network to reflect on who is leading forest action for people and nature, what is driving forest loss, and what is actually working.

Who leads forest action for people and nature? 

Global policy discussions at forums such as UNFF often emphasise the importance of sustainable forest management and inclusive governance. However, translating these principles into practice depends on how decision-making power is shared at national and local levels.

Forest governance is often shaped at national or international levels, with policies and programmes designed by governments, donors and technical organisations. While consultation processes are increasingly common, local communities and Indigenous Peoples and marginalised groups are not always meaningfully included in decision-making. However, experience from CDKN and its partners shows that more effective outcomes are achieved when local actors play a central role.

CDKN’s alliance partner SouthSouthNorth recently co-authored a report via the Green Accountability Platform that documented how, in Brazil, concerns have emerged where forest-dependent communities were not fully consulted on decisions to shift towards carbon market financing mechanisms. This has raised important questions about fairness, benefit-sharing and the long-term sustainability of such approaches. Rather, enabling citizens to participate in and influence decisions on how climate finance is spent, monitored and governed, can ensure that climate finance systems are not only more effective but also more equitable.

However, strengthening inclusive and locally led governance is not only a matter of equity, but a fundamental part of achieving lasting forest and associated biodiversity outcomes. In rural Nepal, community forest user groups are a cornerstone of forest governance. Yet women have historically been excluded from decision-making, despite policies designed to promote gender equality. In a case study written for the Asian Development Bank's Asia Pacific Climate Report 2025, CDKN’s Senior Technical Advisor, Mairi Dupar, and Indigenous People's champion from Nepal, Kanchan Lama, explored how addressing these gaps – by strengthening inclusive governance and ensuring that those affected can influence decisions – has proven essential for improving forest management outcomes and more equal sharing of benefits and opportunities from forest biodiversity.

At the same time, there are clear examples of how this can work in practice. In central Benin, one of the grantees from CDKN’s knowledge-to-action (K2A) programme, Survie NGO, has supported communities to revitalise traditional systems for managing sacred forests. By reinforcing locally legitimate rules and social norms, while linking these to formal governance structures, these approaches have strengthened both biodiversity conservation and community resilience. In short, Survie ONG has demonstrated that effective forest governance depends on recognising and strengthening existing local systems, including Indigenous and local knowledge practices.

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What are the root causes of biodiversity loss in forests? 

Global commitments discussed at UNFF, including those on halting deforestation, often focus on interventions within forest landscapes. While important, these do not always address the underlying drivers of forest loss. Rather, experience from CDKN and its partners shows that one must often look beyond the forest to address the root causes. The second edition of the Global Center on Adaptation’s Stories of Resilience: Lessons from Local Adaptation Practice, produced in partnership with CDKN, sheds light on this complexity.

In Uganda, for instance, food insecurity and limited livelihood options have driven communities to harvest forest resources unsustainably, including within protected areas. This reflects the challenge of overlapping issues like food insecurity, limited livelihood opportunities and unequal access to resources. That being said, locally led restoration efforts in Uganda’s Mount Elgon region, through collaboration with local conservation authorities, have helped diversify livelihoods through bamboo cultivation, strengthening biodiversity and reduced disaster risks by stabilising soils and reducing flooding and landslides.

In Honduras, farmers historically relied on slash-and-burn practices until they were introduced to more sustainable agroforestry systems, such as Inga alley cropping. Once this proved viable, they spread through farmer-to-farmer learning.  This demonstrated how access to knowledge, peer learning and practical support can help shift agricultural practices towards more sustainable approaches.

In Kenya, nurturing new partnerships has proven essential to overcoming barriers to forest conservation and restoration. Along the country’s coast, communities initially did not recognise the potential value of mangrove ecosystems – especially in carbon markets. However, with support to connect them to scientists and especially carbon finance mechanisms, these coastal Kenya’s mangrove ecosystems have begun to generate new revenue streams linked to both livelihoods and conservation of mangrove biodiversity.

These examples reinforce a consistent message from CDKN’s work: deforestation is closely tied to broader economic and institutional systems. Addressing it requires engaging with the conditions that shape how people use and value forests.

What is working? 

Discussions at UNFF21 increasingly emphasise the importance of scaling effective, locally tested solutions. Encouragingly, there is a growing body of practical experience, including what has been highlighted above, that points to effective approaches spanning locally relevant livelihoods, inclusive governance, knowledge-sharing and improved financial accountability.

Supporting locally relevant, climate-resilient livelihoods is one important pathway. In Mozambique, for example, baobab-based value chains are enabling women-led enterprises to generate income without relying on charcoal production, thereby reducing pressure on forests. This is being championed by the Micaia Foundation, a grantee from CDKN’s K2A programme, whose mission is to consolidate a more ecologically sustainable basis for local livelihoods and economic development in the country.

Intergenerational learning is another area of innovation. This is the case for important forests on Mount Marsabit in Kenya, where another one of the grantees from CDKN’s knowledge-to-action programme, Nature and People as One (NaPO), have leveraged the use of mobile apps to monitor ecological conditions including biodiversity, and organised a ‘Conservation Cup’ football tournament that spurs young people to plant native tree species based on local knowledge. Building on this momentum, NaPO has also influenced participatory forest management planning processes, strengthening community engagement in local governance mechanisms.

At the same time, efforts to improve transparency and accountability in climate finance are gaining importance, as documented in the aforementioned Stories of Resilience: Lessons from Local Adaptation Practice report. In Brazil, for example, Instituto Fronteiras developed a multilingual online platform that mapped REDD+ projects, strengthening accountability, transparency and community participation.

Such initiatives are vital in ensuring that Indigenous Peoples and local communities are consulted, benefit-sharing mechanisms are fair and transparent, and climate finance contributes to forest conservation and local well-being.

How do we sustain action? 

UNFF21 provides a critical platform to take stock of progress and strengthen international cooperation on forests. Looking ahead to 2030, meeting global commitments will depend on how effectively lessons from practice are integrated into policy and investment decisions, including the priorities identified in CDKN and FFLA’s submission to the COP30 action agenda.

Looking ahead to 2030, meeting global forest, climate and biodiversity commitments will depend on how effectively lessons from practice are integrated into policy, finance and implementation frameworks, including those being shaped through UNFF and the COP30 action agenda.

CDKN’s experience to date shows that effective forest action for interconnected biodiversity, climate and livelihoods already exists. The task now is to scale it by aligning finance, strengthening accountability and partnerships, and supporting local communities who are longstanding custodians of biodiversity. Along with our partners, we are working to ensure that this experience informs effective decision-making that scales locally led approaches to achieve global goals, helping translate commitments made in forums like UNFF into meaningful change on the ground.